I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 184: Teacher Beichuan's Great Victory

After the June 6th supplement of "Wenyi" was released, the mailroom of Kawaide Shobo's headquarters building was soon flooded with letters from readers from all over the country.

The first part of "Confessions", which is more than 10 words long, gave those hungry "Beichuan fans" a full-on enjoyment.

The first part ends with teacher Yuko Moriguchi announcing to prisoners A and B, who are protected by the Juvenile Law: "This matter will not end like this. I will punish you in a way beyond imagination."

This scene is very similar to the declaration Kitagawa Hide made to Shinichiro Azuma in the talk show.

Readers can't help but become curious, what methods will Yuko Moriguchi use to punish the two underage scum who are protected by the Juvenile Law?

At Kawaide Shobo, after deciding to publish "Confessions", Kawaide Shizuko and Saito Rena were mentally prepared to be condemned by all sectors of society and the public.

Kitagawa Hide's book not only deals with sensitive issues of the Juvenile Law, but also narrates an unpleasant case in the first person voice of a national teacher.

But to the surprise of everyone in the editorial department of Wen Yi, there were very few letters from readers criticizing Kitagawa Hide.

On the contrary, they expressed more support and praise for Mr. Kitagawa, as well as their expectations for the subsequent plot of "Confessions".

The fact that there are mostly rational and high-quality readers made Shizuko Kawaide and others finally realize that Mr. Kitagawa not only brought new audiences to "Wenyi", but also helped improve their personal qualities!
As the June 1996 supplement of "Wenyi" continues to be sold, there are more and more discussions on the topic of "whether the Juvenile Law needs to be revised."

At first, it was just a heated discussion among a small group of book readers, and you could occasionally hear these discussions in public places such as trams, subways and libraries.

After all, since it is related to current laws, no one dares to discuss it too much.

Within a few days, discussions on the Internet also began.

Kitagawa Hidejo asked Saito Rena and others to write some soft articles and put them in major magazines and newspapers to help build momentum - unfortunately these soft articles did not stir up any waves in the Japanese literary world. It seems that some of the more useful methods in later generations may not be perfectly replicated in this era due to the limitations of the times.

This made Kitagawa Hide feel deeply regretful.

At this time, the bigwigs in the literary world are busy evaluating the Akutagawa Prize for the first half of the year, and there are also many other small awards to be announced.

These literary awards are their core channel for making money from commissions. Even if the Akutagawa Prize is rotten to the core, they will continue to operate it as long as the popularity and status are there.

When it comes to practical interests, these literary giants are more pragmatic than each other. Who has the time to criticize Kitagawa Hide?
His strength and sales are there for all to see. Continuing to smear Kitagawa Hide is a thankless job. If you don't pay him enough, even those second- and third-rate literary critics won't bother to criticize "Confessions".

In this way, "Confessions" broke the previous norm that whenever Kitagawa Hideichi released a book, the literary world would criticize him. The reputation of his work soon surpassed that of "The Last Song" and overshadowed "Border" and "Paradise Lost" which had just finished serialization.

As "Confessions" became popular, some people began to write articles about the defamation of the teaching profession in the book, accusing Kitagawa Hide of wantonly smearing the teaching profession in order to highlight the tension of the plot.

This accusation is very well made, and it is based on the plot of the book - the heroine Yuko Moriguchi is a former teacher, but what she says and does is indeed not like a role model for a teacher.

Even if her daughter was killed by her two students, this is not acceptable.

This is what the accusers think.

Kitagawa Hide was not prepared to debate with these "saints".

"In times of chaos, kill the saint first" is a true saying.

How outrageous are the Madonnas?
This can be seen from the prototype historical events of the movie "July 7nd".

The film is based on the famous Utøya shooting incident in Norway.

To put it simply, a right-wing radical youth who hated the "white left virgin" disguised himself as a security guard and quietly landed on Utoya Island with a gun on July 2011, 7.

At that time, there were hundreds of young people undergoing training on the island. All of them came from powerful families in Norway, and Utøya was also known for "cultivating future leaders."

He then went on a killing spree on Utoya Island, killing 77 innocent teenagers and injuring more than 200 people.

After the incident, the Norwegian government struggled between due process and punishing the prisoner. In the end, the prisoner was not sentenced to death and is enjoying extremely high treatment in prison.

He even asked to play the latest PS4 game - because Norwegian prisons attach great importance to human rights and believe that even if he is a prisoner, his legitimate needs should be met.

This wonderful irony has always remained in Kitagawa Hide's mind.

There is really no need to debate with this group of not-so-smart saints as you will either be led astray by them or just stand there getting anxious and angry.

Unexpectedly, the ridiculous remarks of the saints stimulated another group of people, who were once thought to never speak out for Kitagawa Hidekazu's "Confessions" -

They are the active national teachers.

Surprisingly, after "Confessions" was serialized, the group that most supported this novel were not the family members who had been persecuted by juvenile offenders, nor the people in society with a strong sense of justice, but the teachers who, like Yuko Moriguchi, were fed up with the harassment by that group of bad boys!
In the story, the experiences of teachers such as Sakuramiya Masayoshi, Moriguchi Yuko, T, and Witt are their true portrayals.

Junior high school students take advantage of the "age limit" to do all kinds of evil, and many of them deliberately plot against teachers. The experiences of the teachers in the novel are nothing compared to them.

In real life, there are many teachers whose families are broken up because of this.

But due to the Juvenile Law and their own professions, they cannot speak out and dare not speak.

This time they had an outlet for venting, and soon a large number of working teachers expressed their support for Kitagawa Hidekazu and his "Confessions" online, and started an Internet debate with those saintly people who took the view that "Kitagawa Hidekazu insulted the profession of national teachers."

When a new book is discussed in society, many people will follow suit. Not long ago, Mori Tetsutaro wrote a literary review of "The Last Song". As expected, the popularity of this article was not comparable to his article on Mr. Kitagawa.

Everyone seems to have labeled him "Kitagawa Hide". As long as he writes any article related to Teacher Kitagawa, no matter what the content is, he can make a lot of money.

On the contrary, if the manuscript has little to do with Professor Beichuan, no matter how well it is written, no one seems to buy it.

Tetsutarou Mori was both happy and sad about this.

No one wants to have another person's label permanently stuck on his forehead. As a literary critic, he also wants to be remembered in the literary criticism world like those top figures.

But the readers really don’t buy it!
After a struggle between his conscience and his desires, Mori Tetsutaro gave in, and with tears in his eyes, he took the handful of 10,000 yen bills and continued his old business.

6 month 15 day.

The half-dead "Group Portrait" was released.

What is sad is that this issue of "Group Portrait" actually quoted the physical book cover of "Hear the Wind Sing" on the magazine cover.

Then he blatantly took advantage of Kitagawa Hide's traffic.

[After a year, revisit the best works of the group portrait newcomers in history]

By selling emotions, "Group Portrait" actually achieved the best first-day sales this year.

And this is the aftermath brought by Kitagawa Hide who was pushed away by Noma Airi.

At this point, the struggle between "Bungei" and "Gunzo", between Kawaide Shobo and Kodansha, and between Kitagawa Hide and the Noma family finally came to an end.

The editorial department of "Gunzo" underwent a major reshuffle after the death of Sawako Noma. People like Sada, the "super-ear" who was more familiar to Rena Saito, also jumped to Kawaide Shobo.

After the change of blood, the newly appointed head of the Noma family, the editor-in-chief and other senior executives performed a "Peter Cat" with great sincerity. They first apologized for the stupid behavior of Noma Sawako and her daughter, and then respectfully presented a check for 3000 million yen, and hoped that Mr. Kitagawa would have the opportunity to continue to cooperate with them in the future.

Of course, it’s okay not to cooperate.

This time, I just came to apologize and ease the relationship.

Beichuan Xiu is a soft-hearted person who does not like to be tough. He would not hit someone who smiles at him, so he accepted the check and said with a smile, "We will definitely cooperate if there is a chance in the future."

It's still the same thing as the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office's Special Investigation Division.

He didn't say the exact time, but both parties knew it.

But by getting a reply from Mr. Kitagawa, the new head of the family has achieved his minimum goal. This wave of "nostalgia" is also possible because of the tacit consent of Kitagawa Hide and my wife Yumeko.

There is another happy thing on June 6th.

"No Longer Human", starring Takuya Kimura, Shizuka Kudo and Rei Jabami, has officially been released in major theaters.

Kitagawa Hide's name appeared at the top of the screenwriter list and was even printed on the promotional poster.

His name is like a stabilizing force. When movie and book fans see him, they think of last year's hit "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", so they are happy to go to the cinema and pay for "No Longer Human".

This time the film will be shown in all major cinema chains, so people won’t miss the premiere just because they couldn’t find a single-cinema theater before.

Kitagawa Hide bought a stack of movie tickets and invited Saito Rena, three of his disciples, Senhara Masato and a group of his good friends to the cinema to watch the premiere.

"No Longer Human" has been on sale for nearly ten months, with total sales exceeding 400 million copies. The release of this movie will drive another wave of sales of physical books. It is estimated that annual sales will exceed 500 million copies without any problem.

If Kitagawa Hide remembers correctly, the record for annual sales of physical books in Japan is ranked first by "Devil's Tattoo" with 689 million copies. The second and third places are also novels by Ichiro Tanizaki, namely "Haruko-sho" with 577 million copies and "The Drizzle" with 486 million copies.

These three novels were written in similar years. The last two were written after Ichiro Tanizaki became famous after his novel The Devil's Tattoo was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He reaped the benefits of being the number one in the world.

When Kitagawa Hide wrote "No Longer Human", he was not only not very famous, but was also controversial for his job-hopping and changing track.

Under such circumstances, the fact that "No Longer Human" can rank among the top three in history is a miracle of pure literature.

This is a great victory for Mr. Kitagawa!
After watching the movie, Kitagawa Hidemasa and Chihara Masato were discussing "whether the Thai baht will be attacked" when they were suddenly pulled on the wrist by Saito Rena who was on the phone.

Reina Saito, whose swelling had just subsided a few days ago, wore a beautiful suit today, a black blazer and a hip skirt, and shiny black stockings on her lower body, making her look charming and particularly attractive.

She seldom wears such sexy clothes, and today is probably the day for her to change her mood.

Kitagawa Hide looked at her in confusion, but saw that Saito Rena was rarely able to suppress her smile, and her happiness was almost overflowing.

"What's wrong?" asked Kitagawa Hide.

Saito Reina pointed to her phone and said goodbye to the person she was talking to: "Yes, yes, yes, thank you for your hard work~ I'll contact you later, bye~"

After hanging up the phone, she didn't care about the people around her. She directly put her arm around Kitagawa Hide, pulled him to her side, stood on tiptoe, put her ear close to him, and said in an uncontrollable voice: "Kitagawa! Teacher Dong Lizi from France called. She said that Paradise Lost was successfully shortlisted for the Goncourt Literature Prize! The organizer invited us to attend the award ceremony at the end of the month!"

(End of this chapter)